It started 10 days before.
I woke up in the middle of the night and noticed there was numbness in the muscles that control the left corner of my lips. It was weird. I was not sure if this was something serious or something that I could address after I got up for work later. I went into the bathroom and made sure I did not have a droopy smile and to check to make sure I had not lost any dexterity in my left hand. There was no tingling and I was not experiencing any headaches.
Everything checked out so I decided to go back to sleep.
There is an amazing app that exists that allows me access to all my medical information in one place. It is called MyChart. The next morning I logged into MyChart and sent a quick message to the neurologist I have been seeing to ask if the numbness in my lips was something I need to be concerned about.
Her nurse responded to say the doctor had reviewed what happened and suggested that if it happened again that I should go to the emergency department right away.
Within a few days, I received a all from the neurologist who asked about other possible symptoms and emphasized the need to visit the emergency department should there be a reoccurrence.
It was the very next Sunday that I detected the same numbness again. This time it was only a slight bit compared to what I had experienced in the middle of that night.
What to do. After weighing the lack of severity of the numbness this time against the advice of the neurologist and the fact that Covid 19 was surging again, I called the phone number of neurologist and asked the answering service to notify the on call nurse who called a few minutes later.
Despite concern for exposure to Covid, the decision was made to get to the emergency department.
The count began upon my arrival.
Phyllis greeted me at the entrance and conducted the pre-screening for Covid.
After making it through security, Lorraine gave me a hospital bracelet with my name, age, date of birth, MRN number, CSN number, a QR code and what looked like a UPC code. She asked me to sit in the first two sections of the waiting room.
I did as I was told and prepared myself for what I figured would be a lengthy wait. I brought a book with me in anticipation of just that.
I was wrong about the wait.
Millie called a name that sounded to me like Warren. I responded the second time I heard her call the name because Warren can sound a bit like Lawrence thru a mask. It turns out she was calling my name, so I followed her into a small room that was more like passage way with an opening on one side to waiting and the other side to the emergency department. Millie stood at a computer and gathered information about me. A few minutes into the interview, she excused herself, explaining that she needed to get an MRI scheduled. Things were about to get serious.
Drew came over and introduced himself. He was the first of many doctors who would care for me during my stay. He administered the first exam to check for other symptoms of a possible stroke. I had none. The numbness, though, was still there in the musculature of the left side of my lips and there was also a slight droopy left eyelid. At some point, after he had come and gone a few times, he explained that I was to be admitted for observation.
Soon I was taken to a room with three walls and an aluminum-framed sliding glass entry. As soon as I entered, I was asked to get into the hospital bed. Alex and Korah introduced themselves and the nurses woo would be getting me ready for what was unfolding.
Alex put a bunch of stickers all over my chest and abdomen and connected the wires to them that would allow my vitals to appear on the monitor. Korah, at the same time inserted a clear plastic tube into the vein in my right arm that looked like the end of an IV. Once installed, She used it to draw numerous vials of my blood for testing.
Not too much time went by before James showed up to take me to imaging in a wheelchair where he was the technician who conducted the CT scan on my brain.
After the CT scan was done, Nicole took me back the room in the emergency department where Alex was waiting to re-hook me up to the monitor.
Next, a monitor with a cameral mounted on it was wheeled in and I was examined, with the help of the nurses in the room with me, remotely by a neurologist.
After the neurological exam, Shannon took me to imaging on the second floor after making sure I had taken out anything that had metal in it and left it in the emergency department. Hunter and Dave were waiting for me. They asked me to leave anything in my pockets in the outer room with my glasses before switching me to the MRI bed/ table thing and wheeling me into the MRI room and past a sign declaring that the magnet was always on.
I had no real way of knowing how long I was within the confines of the MRI chamber but, if I had to guess it seemed to be perhaps a half hour.
I watched Hunter wiping down the bed / table thingy and other surfaces before wheeling me back to the emergency department.
The next person to stop by was Ashley from the pharmacy to verify my list of medications.
Dawn from administration was next and asked me to sign the admitting forms with the electronic pen.
Stephanie and Kirsten are residents who performed another neurological exam and asked a list of questions. They introduced me to Bobby, who they said was their boss. She assured me that, based on the fact that the CT scan, the MRI and the blood work, that there was no sign of a stroke.
After some time passed Bryan piled my coat and fleece and sneakers onto the bed and wheeled me to the elevator an then up to the fourth floor and to the end of a passageway past numerous nursing stations to my room in the observation wing where I would spend the night.
Jennifer was the technician who made sure the stickers all over the front of me were connected so my vitals could be monitored during my stay. This was done in a different way on the fourth floor. The wires were connected to a plastic device about the size of a cell phone only twice as thick. My vitals were transmitted to the nursing station using wireless technology.
Alexis was the night nurse who flushed my IV with saline and asked me another list of questions and asked me to interpret what was going on in a cartoon in a small book she had. There was a woman standing in a kitchen washing dishes while being oblivious to the fact that the sink was overflowing and 2 kids were behind her, one of which was standing on a stool that was tipping over while he attempted to get some cookies out of a container on the top shelf of the wall cabinets.
She then injected some medicine into my abdomen that she explained was a precaution for suspected stroke patients. About a half hour later, she returned to check my blood pressure ad temperature.
After a good night sleep, Alex was back to check my blood pressure and temperature. She told me the carotid check and echocardiogram had been scheduled.
Later, Sam introduced himself as the nurse who would care form me until I was discharged.
At 6 am, Wayne stopped in to wheel me to get my carotid checked by Beth. After that, Wayne took me back to my fourth floor room.
Devan was the next doctor to stop by to tell me I should be discharged that day after the echocardiogram and consult by the neurologist on call.
Kenescha was the technician who would care for me until I was discharged.
The next doctor to perform yet another neurological exam was Arie with the help of a resident with a fun sense of humor. So many times I had been asked to follow a finger left and right and up and down. So many times I had touched the infer of a doctor then touched my nose and repeat with the other hand then move my right foot from the shin of my left and move it up to the knee then repeat with the left. So many times I was asked to hole my arms out with my eyes closed to the count of ten and hole my left leg then right leg up to the count of five.
The last doctor to see me was the neurologist. It was the last exam with many of the same checks as I had been thru numerous times.
She advised to be aware of headaches, blurred vision, flashing lights in my field of vision, tingling tin the first three fingers of my hand on the same side, asymmetric smile, mental confusion and being unable to form words. Those would be signs that I should return to the emergency department.
Kenescha wheeled me down to the pick-up area in a wheelchair and my experience was over.
From the onset until discharge, it had been 24 hours. In that time, unless I miscounted, I had been cared for by 30 people. If you count Valerie, the on call nurse at my neurologist’s office and my neurologist, it was more than 30.
